[linux-audio-dev] Re: Any interest in DVD-Audio?

[Jussi Laako]

On Mon, 2005-03-14 at 07:10 +1100, Erik de Castro Lopo wrote:

> There are many knowledgable people who disagree:
> 
>     http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=it&lr=&ie=UTF-8&threadm=brnb42028r4%40enews4.newsguy.com
> 
> Personally, I think SACD is mostly marketing.

Typical newsgroup FUD.

First of all, most of current A/D and D/A converters are delta sigma
modulators. If you record something at for example 24-bit 192 kHz (using
typical delta sigma converter), do some editing (in float format) and
then output the master as PWM for SACD. Then you can use very simple D/A
converter. Currently the difference to usual DVD-A player is that the
player does the PWM conversion. No difference here...

And nowadays you can buy PWM power amplifiers too, in ideal system you
could drive those directly from SACD bitstream without additional
conversions.

It is more probable to have poor format converter and D/A converter in
cheap DVD-A player than in studio equipment.

I have built number of audio D/A conversion systems and I still prefer
true multibit (20-bit) Burr-Brown converters. However, non delta-sigma
converters are very rare in lo-fi and mid-fi equipment and very quality
sensitive.. Problem with delta-sigma conversion is worse DIM distortion
performance, this is not something SACD-specific.


-- 
Jussi Laako <jussi.laako at pp.inet.fi>